Woof, Woof, Woof

It’s come to this. The dog who sees things wants to write this post. But, she doesn’t have opposable thumbs. So, it’s up to me.

This is what happens when you really need to make some pictures, but the color is gone, everything is green and you are bored out of your mind. It forces creativity. It forces you out of your comfort zone. And, it forced me to look down and work on the ground.

Not quite. But, almost.

I can stand and look down at what the lens sees. I can push the button from there. That’s a good thing. If I actually sat on the ground, that would be fine. But with my leg, hip and back issues, getting up is a whole other story. I can do it. But, the action is not fit for public consumption. It’s sort of like a crab trying to right itself.

Enough about me.

I have some questions. About Storyteller. For many of you, when you open an email you come straight to this page. Not really a problem. For others, you come to what amounts to a home page. The more that I look at it, the more overbearing and oppressive it becomes. Sure, there are a lot of pictures in a tiny bit of real estate. But…

What do you all think? Please don’t do the usual WordPress/Facebook thing and say it’s great, for fear of hurting my feelings. Fire away. Do you like the home page? Do you hate it? What about the rest?

Because.

The more I think about design and blogs like this one, it’s about you — the reader and viewer — more than it is about me. Hurting my feelings by being honest should be the least of your worries. Making Storyteller and easy to access place that’s fun to read should be the most important issue.

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10 Comments

Anything below knee level is scary now. Drop a sock or an elastic band and the brain. Cells go into melt down trying to decide if bending over is worth the pain. It’s amazing how dexterous your feet become passing objects upwards to you hands! Love the dog view. Bet he sees a lot of things we miss.

Hi. I think we are talking about two different things. I’m only talking about here. If you come to Storyteller via the home page, you see a mass of pictures. If you click on a picture, you get open a page like you see via email.

The website… sheesh. I hate how it opens. It needs serious work. hat’s a whole other story.

I subscribe through the email process, so my first impression is the daily posting. It’s simple and highlights one beautiful photo, which leads me very quickly to wonder what you’re going to say about it…as in whether or not the dog directed you to it. I enjoy that. But I also at times go to the website because I find that visually stimulating. I don’t think it’s too busy. As a visual artist I think that’s a beautiful calling card. It’s still very clear how to proceed, since each photo is dated, and I agree with T Ibara about the Instagram quality, which is appealing. It might be “busy,” but it isn’t distracting.

Thank you. Until… Instagram quality. Ugh. The things about photography that is killing photography by killing creativity. A little side story. When I make reservations at a restaurant and the voice at the other end cheerfully tells me that they are Instagramable, I cancel the reservation. Heh. I care about the food, not whether I can take a picture of it.

I was surprised by the new home page and didn’t like it at first, but now I’m happy that I can see more photos without scrolling. What I don’t like is that you have to click Older Posts to see more than the first handful, and if you are trying to get caught up on Storyteller posts because you’ve missed two weeks’ worth (which I often do / you know how it is with work and travel), you have to click Older Posts a lot. Just my 2 cents.

Hmmm. I’m still not sold on it. WordPress designs most pages now to be used on some kind of portable device. Scrolling through all that art looks great on my phone or iPad. It looks clunky and overbearing to me on a full machine of any type. It’s likely that I’ll change it to something that is more minimal since that’s what I am. Sheesh, we live that way except for the tools of our trades. 🙂